Press here for freedom?
Political reform will not be easy, as was reported in the Egyptian press. Aziza Sami looks at the obstacles involved
Bilateral ties and efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict featured in the press coverage of President Hosni Mubarak's European tour which took in France, Italy and Britain. There were frequent allusions as well to the question of political reform in the Arab world, and the degree of involvement which the international community should, or should not have, in this regard.
On Monday, the national daily Al-Akhbar highlighted excerpts from the interview given by President Mubarak to the French newspaper Le Figaro. These included statements by the president that "there can be no successful reform in the Arab world if the Arab-Israeli conflict is not resolved" and that "any initiative imposed from the outside will result in chaos and will be to the advantage of terrorism." The president also told Le Figaro that his presidential term would extend for two more years and that "no one can predict the future." He said that "Egypt is a republican, not a monarchical system." Al-Akhbar also reported in the same issue on European concerns, expressed by EU sources, about the current US initiative to "democratise" the Middle East, especially in the absence of a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
On Tuesday, the national daily Al-Ahram 's banner highlighted the president's remarks made during a visit to Cairo International Airport that "Egypt started reforms a long time ago. We are afraid of nothing but cannot lay everything on the table all at once. The steps towards reform are calculated. No one should assume that freedom will be realised at the press of a button." The president referred to the recent abolition of the state security courts and imprisonment of journalists on press-related charges. "Opening the door to [reform] completely and without any controls to all of the peoples of the region will lead to chaos. Should this happen, then it will be difficult to unify all of the Arab peoples once again."
Al-Akhbar on Wednesday was careful to point out in its banners that "Washington welcomes President Mubarak's initiative on democratic reform." Reporting on a meeting between Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, Al-Akhbar quoted Grossman as saying, "The US agrees with Egypt that reform cannot, and will not, be imposed from the outside" and that it is "very important to assert that each country has its own special characteristics."
Wasting neither ink nor paper, Al-Akhbar 's Ahmed Ragab wrote conclusively on Friday, "It seems the aim of the Americans in initiating the Greater Middle East Initiative is to finish off the Arabs. It seems as well that they do not realise that the Arabs are already finished."
Prime Minister Atef Ebeid was quoted by Al- Ahram on Wednesday as saying, "We are the government of all Egyptians, and political reform has witnessed a leap which has never been seen before."
Such concern for democracy was not as apparent in the remarks made by Interior Minister Habib El-Adli and reported by the press on Friday. Al-Ahram quoted the interior minister as lambasting the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood which had proposed an "initiative for comprehensive political and democratic reform". It was not only the Brotherhood that the minister censured, however, but the Press Syndicate as well for having hosted the Brotherhood's supreme guide who spoke of his group's reform proposal. Al-Ahram said the minister had rejected the Brotherhood's initiative and quoted him as saying, "The Press Syndicate bears responsibility for this lapse. Legal parties are the only ones who can speak about such issues. Illegal entities have nothing to do with such matters."
In response, on Monday, Abdel-Halim Qandil, the managing editor of the opposition weekly Al-Arabi, issued by the Nasserist Party, was scathing in his attack on the minister for having used the word "lapse" in reference to the Press Syndicate. "It's as if the syndicate was another of his ministry's possessions, to which he can direct censure and scold and intimidate." Qandil points out that the minister's attitude is in stark contrast to the words of appreciation expressed by President Mubarak during the recently held journalists' conference. He sees in the minister's words, in fact, an insidious alliance being formed between anti-democratic forces which want to clamp down on press freedoms and the security-minded Interior Ministry. "A procedural mistake, that of the syndicate hosting the banned Brotherhood, is being capitalised on to launch a security onslaught on the syndicate. This mistake aside, it is not wrong that politics would be a topic of discussion in the syndicate which has placed itself at the vanguard of political reform and change."
The press reporting of economic issues this week also sounded as if some sort of struggle has ensued between the government and chronically rising prices. On Friday, Al-Ahram reported, "In its cabinet meeting, the government promised to bring down the price of basic commodities within days." With strategic precision defying all economic common sense, given the pound's current devaluation, the government, according to Al-Ahram, declared it would "bring prices down to what they were before the floating of the pound, on 26 January 2003".
The opposition daily Al-Wafd issued by the Wafd Party did not display much sympathy for Ebeid when it asked on Thursday, "Who is to have pity on whom, Dr Ebeid?" The paper, reporting on a parliamentary session, said that the prime minister, mercilessly grilled in parliament, responded to one particularly harsh attack by an MP concerning spiralling prices by replying, "Have pity, stop defaming the face of Egypt, the country of honest and loyal people. The government has not fallen short of its duties." Al-Wafd could not refrain from retorting, "YOU have pity, Dr Ebeid. People are screaming at the horrific rise in prices which your government, with its decisions, have brought about."
